Neal and Annette Plowman are a reserved, philanthropic couple who have donated extensively in New Zealand.
A reserved Kiwi couple are selflessly donating $150 million to be used in massive conservation projects across New Zealand.
Notably private philanthropic pair Neal and Annette Plowman built their wealth through expanding and growing their family’s laundry and towel supply business.
The duo went on to sell the business to American laundry giant Alsco in 1998 and alongside other successful investments, they founded and sold the popular cinema chain, Hoyts.
The Plowmans are now investing $150m in environmental projects for the next 10 years through their privately-funded operation Next Foundation, which was established in 2014.
Originally, they invested $100m in the foundation but are now taking that funding even further.
The man in charge of spending that $150m is Next chief executive Andrew Grant, who says after a long career in consultancy he felt a strong pull to give back to the people of New Zealand through conservation efforts.
Grant attended Onehunga High School and went on to study engineering, before being given what he describes as his “big break in life” when he was awarded a Rhodes scholarship to Oxford University.
After earning a Philosophy, Politics and Economics degree from Oxford, Grant went on to have a career at McKinsey & Company, where he worked for nearly 35 years.
“I always felt the responsibility that I wanted at some stage to do something that was philanthropic, that was more directly giving back than my business career,” he said.
“I grew up in a reasonably humble background but Mum and Dad always had us in the bush.
“I look at McKinsey, with all this incredible resource, this incredible talent, this incredible technology, this funding that’s going to the world’s most successful commercial organisations. And the reflection was, you know, why can’t nature even get some of that?”
He said during his business consultancy career he witnessed talent and resources being funnelled into a variety of institutions such as the America’s Cup or Rocket Lab, but nature and conservation efforts were not receiving the same level of investment or technology.
After being based in China with his five kids and flying all over the world while with McKinsey, Grant worked out that for him to live a carbon-neutral life, he would have to plant one million trees. He has now achieved that by planting a colossal number of native trees on his family farm in Wānaka.
“It‘s probably the least productive farm in New Zealand, but we’ve planted over a million native trees. As a family we’ve done that for nearly 20 years, but for me the magic of New Zealand is not where we all have our own private national park,” Grant said.
“It’s not just that these extraordinary conservation projects bring back nature, but the way they also deliver human social cohesion and that uniting element that I think is unique to New Zealand.
“You can get upset about the decline and those things are real, but when you invest in it and restore it and give New Zealand nature a chance, it responds phenomenally.”
The Plowmans funded a 99-year lease of Rotorua Island in Auckland’s Hauraki Gulf and then gifted it to the people of Auckland to be used as a public conservation park. They embarked on a major project to remove predators and replant native forest across the island to restore it as a sanctuary for native species, and set the groundwork for the vision behind Next.
The $150m grant from the couple will allow Next to carry out extensive activity with projects that work alongside iwi and the Department of Conservation.
“We’re heavily looking into several in the North Island, most likely the Waipoua Forest is going to be one, where Tāne Mahuta New Zealand’s most iconic tree is,” Grant said.
“It’s quite interesting interacting with iwi leaders and the way the commitments and the discussions they talk about are a partnership that is without a due date, that endures indefinitely.
“There’s that idea that if you do invest in nature and you look after it and you steward it, it does endure.”
Next has carried out initiatives such as the Taranaki Mounga Project to restore more than 34,000 hectares of bush in Taranaki through native forest replantation and the removal of introduced pests. Other work has included wildlife preservation projects and large-scale pest removal on Stewart Island, in Abel Tasman National Park and the South Westland District.
Grant said Auckland could also benefit from the funding as Next looked at ways to promote the city as a nature-positive destination through restoring wetlands or returning the dawn chorus of native birds to the city.
“I do think the generosity of the Plowmans, in the world we live in at the moment, I just actually think they are extraordinary, good New Zealanders.
“I just do hope that we’re able to deliver something that is genuinely hopeful for the next generation and beyond that, that is truly an endowment and a gift to the nation,” he said.
Eva de Jong is a reporter covering general news for the New Zealand Herald, Weekend Herald and Herald on Sunday. She was previously a multimedia journalist for the Whanganui Chronicle, covering health stories and general news.
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